The Long Walk (2025)

I'm not saying I'm ancient, but I'm old enough to have read The Bachman Books before Rage was excluded from the collection by Stephen King. It was a pretty great read. Four novellas written by Stephen King, under the name Richard Bachman, between the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The highlight was The Long Walk though, and it's something that fans of King's work wanted to see turned into a movie for decades. Here we are then, but is it any good?

The short answer to that is yes.

The premise is simple enough. America seems to have slid into some kind of horrible totalitarianism, with culture and free thought frowned upon as everyone struggles to make ends meet. This leaves many desperate enough to nominate themselves for a place in the annual event known as The Long Walk. The participants are all teenage boys, one from each state. All they have to do is walk at a constant speed of at least 3 miles per hour. That may sound okay to you, but they get three warnings if they fall below that speed, and then a bullet. There are no toilet breaks, no rest periods, no relief from pain, just walking. Always walking. Until there's only one left. The winner, who will receive a huge sum of money and one wish granted. Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) thinks he has a chance, and knows exactly what he wants his one wish to be. Peter McVries (David Jonsson) seems to be a good ally during the contest, but both young men need to remember that only one can survive to the end. Gary Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer) remembers this, and tries to goad others into wasting some of their energy, Billy Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) looks like a very strong contender, and others trying to stay on their feet include Arthur Baker (Tut Nyuot), Hank Olson (Ben Wang), Collie Parker (Joshua Odjick), and Thomas Curley (Roman Griffin Davis). 

Adapted from page to screen by JT Mollner, The Long Walk is directed well by Francis Lawrence (best known for helming a number of other movies about a deadly competition, a note that everyone is obliged to mention in any review of this film). There's only so much you can really do with the premise though. This is a film with a lot of conversations happening between people who are walking. It's punctuated by some sudden deaths, and those are sometimes delivered with maximum impact, but it's essentially a lot of walking and talking. Not great cinema, but still a great story nonetheless.

Lawrence has done himself a big favour with his casting. Hoffman does a fantastic job in his lead role, and Jonsson is almost equally good (if slightly hampered by the accent and occasional phrases that make him feel like he's mired in the bog of eternal King-isms). Plummer is even more hampered, but does well, and Wareing, Nyuot, Wang, and co. all do good work, especially when their full journey is shown via stages of physical and mental deterioration. Judy Greer has a couple of scenes that have her fretting over her son (Hoffman), something she does really well, and Mark Hamill is brilliantly cold and jingoistic as The Major, the military figurehead of The Long Walk and the one who will deliver the final shot before the winner is celebrated. 

I did really like this, and it's been good to see many others reacting positively to it, but I can't judge it on purely technical aspects. I think at least some of my reaction stems from finally seeing ANY adaptation of the story in film form. The material is strong enough to make up for any minor failings, and maybe the fact that it is here for us in 2025 will help us avoid making a reality that comes all too close to this kind of fiction. Or maybe we're all just too tired and befuddled to do anything other than keep walking toward a depressingly bleak future. 

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Strange Darling (2024)

While other people do appear onscreen here and there, Strange Darling is essentially a taut two-handed that pits Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald against one another for most of the runtime. A lot of people loved it. I did not.

Fitzgerald plays a character just called The Lady. Gallner’s character is named The Demon. That sums up the apparent simplicity of what is being presented here, but it is a simplicity that is due to be subverted and toyed with, considering the non-chronological presentation of the various chapters in the story. 

There’s some good stuff here, especially when you consider that it is only the second full feature from writer-director JT Mollner. One or two moments have a nice layering of tension as we watch a couple plan and play with various roles in the bedroom, but they are too quickly forgotten when the film turns to what ends up being a far less interesting cat and mouse affair.

I can see why Mollner decided to play with the chronology of the screenplay, but I am not entirely sure that he made the best decision. This might have worked better in a more linear fashion, as long as one or two details were tweaked or moved around to wherever they could be most effectively revealed, as the appearance of the numbered chapters almost immediately clue film fans in to the fact that they are not necessarily being given the full picture.

It’s a major plus point that the leads are so good though. Gallner has been delivering fantastic performances in films for a good few years now, I look forward to his appearances (even in films not worthy of his talent), and Fitzgerald sinks her teeth into the kind of role that feels like an announcement of the next phase of her film career. Both actors do fantastic work with what they’re given, and I will mention how pleased I was to see small roles for Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey.

The biggest problem with Strange Darling is how easy it is to see the process. Mollner clearly had one or two key images in his mind, which he then developed into something he hoped would surprise, and possibly shock, viewers. But those familiar with any film like this will find the prospective surprises completely unsurprising, and there aren’t many major shocks when the direction of everything becomes clear. A good final scene helps though, but it’s not enough for me to love this as fully and fervently as many others seemed to.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share